Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Old Moss Woman

Who is to say what a tree remembers?
Twisted and bent, dying limbs
trailing skeins of lichen;
caught woefully
in a mockery
of protracted death throes.
A perch, a home, a hollow
for generations of matching
scolding squirrels to stash their loot,
for songbirds
to stealthily tuck their transient
opalescent young.
Who is to say?

8 comments:

In the darkest frameof a quiet night, afterchecking two, three timesthe oak, squirrel's home,uproots a momentand does a spin, maybe two,and settles back downwith a secret smirkand a new poem nestledlike a tired new bird.

“At night I dream that you and I are two plantsthat grew together, roots entwined,and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,since we are made of earth and rain.” ― Pablo Neruda, Regalo De Un Poeta/ Gift Of A Poet

“At night I dream that you and I are two plantsthat grew together, roots entwined,and that you know the earth and the rain like my mouth,since we are made of earth and rain.” ― Pablo Neruda, Regalo De Un Poeta/ Gift Of A Poet

A sasquatch tale for you!

I'm excited to announce that my daughter and I co-wrote and published a young adult novella! It's available through Amazon. Here's the blurb. If you get a chance to read it, please let me know what you think!

Estella of Halftree Village: A Sasquatch Tale

Published May 2, 2014

Scrappy Fox Press

By Rachel and Ursula Westfall

Two generations ago, a handful of families fled the violence and poverty of the city to build a new life for themselves in the wilds.
Estella, born and raised in Halftree Village, finds herself caught between cultures when a team of sasquatch hunters arrives from the city. Myth becomes reality when she befriends a young sasquatch, and her village must tap into its remarkable resources to keep her hairy friend safe from harm.

This beautiful, sad poem was written by Christopher in response to my poem Without memorial. It was too lovely to remain buried in the comments, so I put it here on my windowsill, where the sunlight may fall across the words to heal Coyote's grief.

Visitors

This place is a story

The Waxing Moon was a thin book, well-worn and poorly bound, spine inexpertly repaired with tape. After school, sheltered by the stacks of the public library, the children secretly read spells from the book, never daring to borrow it. It was full of mysteries: spells that disappeared warts with knotted red string and dripping eaves; how to become invisible by placing amethyst under the tongue; stranger things involving cat bones. One day, the book was gone, and I always wondered which one of us had taken it. I'm pretty sure it wasn't me.